Lorain garbage rates down, water rates up in city

LORAIN — Trash collection rates are going down, but water rates are going up in Lorain for 2014.
City utility bills will have good news and bad news this month when they go out to about 25,000 residential water and sewer customers in Lorain, said Safety-Service director Robert Fowler. The city also uses its utility bills to charge for garbage collection.
The good news is that Lorain residents will see a decrease in the charge for trash collection due to the new contract between the city of Lorain and Republic Services Inc.
Lorain residents previously paid $15 per household per month for waste hauling. Under the new contract, that charge would drop to $12.86 a month in 2014 and would not hit $15 per household per month until 2020, Mayor Chase Ritenauer has said.
The January bill reflects December collection; the February bill for January collection also will decrease due to a change in how the waste hauler calculates its fuel charge, Fowler said.
Lorain utility bills also will be late going out this month because of a delay in Republic Services giving December 2013 information to the city for billing, Fowler said.
However, water rates will go up to raise money for the city’s water fund cash reserve.
The cost will go up about 40 cents per hundred cubic feet to about $3.57 per cubic feet. One cubic feet is equal to about 748 gallons of water.
The administration does not want to raise the water rate, but the saving grace is there is an offset in costs because of the new garbage collection contract, Ritenauer said.
Water bills will increase because the city’s water fund last year collected about $1 million less than expected, Fowler said.
It appeared industrial users in Lorain did not use as much water as the city expected in 2013, he said.
That lower use caused the city to spend its water fund cash reserve to cover costs last year.
In 2012, the city water fund had a balance of about $1 million; as of Nov. 22, the Utilities Department estimated the fund would end with about $811 at the end of 2013, Fowler said.
“We’re in a negative cash flow situation and by law we’re not allowed to be,” he said.
Ideally, the city has enough cash reserves to operate for three months, Foaqwler added.
The city also uses the money to pay for waterline upgrades and Lorain should replace about 10 miles of lines per year, Fowler said.
One goal is to eliminate water main breaks that can be costly to repair, he added.
“Our infrastructure out there is in deplorable shape,” Fowler said. “We’ve got to fix it.”
In 2013, Lorain officials also oversaw road resurfacing projects paid for with the Issue 13 street improvement levy that voters approved in November 2012. Since that time, the city administration has emphasized the need to replace waterlines to avoid digging up newly resurfaced roadways.
“My issue is, with the paving, we want to maximize our public dollar,” he said. “One of the ways we do that is to leverage waterline replacement with street paving.”
Eventually, Lorain could change the way the city bills for water by charging a minimum service fee plus costs for consumption above a minimum amount, Fowler said. The current rate structure is based on consumption, he said.